John Harrington-WHAT WE USE - Carts

Here's a video segment on the carts that we use. A transcription of the video is available after the jump.

Hands on instructional video on photography from Assignment Construct.

Transcript:
Hi, I’m John Harrington and we’re going to break out and break down the wide variety of equipment we use to deliver images to our clients. Next we are going to show you one of the equipment kits we use when we are traveling on assignment. Each kit is different and has a very specific purpose. So lets take a look.

Carts are critical to saving your back. We use a variety of carts, and we’ve collected a number over the years. Kart-A-Bag cart is that it’s small, made out of wire, and will really actually fit in an airline overhead. It’s bungeed together now, but as we break it down, as we break it out. You will see that as the cart goes together, the first thing it does is it becomes rigid at an angle. By becoming rigid at an angle, it means it will take the weight really well. Once it’s rigid at an angle, we’ll of course load it like this.

This thing raises up as high as you would ever need it to. What’s also really great is you’ve got the two handles. These two handles allow you to steer it much better than a single handle would on most carts, because you have the leverage that you need. The cart locks in place and then the bungees will go up and bungee around the equipment. I really like the Kart-A-Bag cart especially when we’re traveling light.

The folks that brought us the Kart-A-Bag also brought us the KartMaster HD-500. This is an industrial cart that shrinks down to size like no other. It’s amazing in its steel manufacture. It’s got anodized aluminum down here, so that the tongue will actually flip out. It’s got air filled tires.

It also, what’s really nice about it also is that what it will do, it’s this size, which is the smallest it will go, by pressing this button allows it to go larger. What’s really nice about this once we get from the smaller size, it actually will get much longer, huge size cart. In addition, this handle will flip over and flip around.

And now the cart, in this size, will work this way, and for cases that are longer, you can lay it past the tongue length. Strap it down, ready to go. Then you take the cart and make it small again. And that’s the KartMaster HD-500.

After we had some assistants complain about the weight of this cart. Let me show you how much it weighs. Just the cart by itself weighs in at over 40 pounds. It’s a heavy cart. We started to look around for another solution that might not be as industrial but still could hold the equipment that we needed. We next turned to the Rock-N-Roller cart. The Rock-N-Roller cart weighs in at just over 30 pounds, so it’s a ten-pound savings.

So the Rock-N-Roller multi cart is a really amazing cart. There are multiple configurations you can get the knobby tires in the back, you can get rigid tires up here in front. We’d like to get knobby tires all around, because we go off roading with our carts, so we want to make sure the wheels don’t get stuck in the mud, quite literally. This cart is really nice in terms of its compactness.

What’s really nice is that this will flip up hitting this wire, and do the same thing with this wire down here and you have a very small space to work in. You can actually buy a platform that will run across here and become a portable workspace where you can set a computer or laptop or other knick-knacks or other pieces of accessories that you need on a shoot.

In addition, even though you can’t see it now you will see it in a second this thing raises up to a very high height. In fact, at this length this will not actually fit into a standard sized elevator. You actually need to make it slightly smaller. At about this size it will actually fit in a standard sized elevator. What we tend to do in that case is leave the end rail down, and this is typically how we work with the cart. There’s nice grip on here so things aren’t sliding off. When you’re done taking the cart, bring it back together it slides all back together, nice and neat, and that is a Rock-N-Roller multi cart.

Next up I’m going to show you the gold standard of carts; it’s called a Magliner. Its huge, it doesn’t collapse down much, but boy this is the gold standard. Movie sets, all over the place. When space is not an issue, weight is not an issue; a Magliner. This one has an added tongue; it also has a felt covered deck. It’s got pneumatic tires. It also has a flip up set of rear wheels. So that the Magliner, this too you can put a deck on if you wanted to. But as carts go this cart is the gold standard. This is a Magliner. We don’t use this that often anymore, but we have used it for a long time, it has just become a little too much for us.

So that’s a look at the carts that we use and have used on the various assignments as we’ve traveled around whether it’s a local trip, a long distance trip, or a trip where we are getting on an airplane. Taking a cart with us is really important because the airline carts

are just not enough when we get to our car.

Below the video is a link to each of the segments, Let me know what you think!

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The Assignment Construct is a commentary about what went into, what went on behind-the-scenes, or otherwise occured before, during, or after an assignment. Everything from images of the setup, to choices of camera angle, client requests (and fulfillment), and so on.